That worked for me. I started walking, heading towards the intersection. People ducked out of our way, but now that the fire was down to a dull roar, they weren’t panicking. Neither was I, although I did not want to try that white flame. There were limits to being fireproof, and I’d rather not find them.
I even turned my back on her, figuring this woman was way too proud of being a heroine to take advantage of it. That made me seem like I wasn’t planning anything.
But I totally was.
About halfway to the corner, I ducked into a carefully chosen store, one without windows. Ducking to the right out of the doorway, I shouted, “Turn off the lights if you want to live!”
Customers and proprietors both scattered. In the chaos, I jumped up and grabbed a thick wire, almost a hose, sticking out of the ceiling and running along the wall over the front door. I think those have something to do with fire detectors, but for me it was an awkward handhold I could hold onto, toes propped on the door lintel, for just a few seconds.
Enough time for Coruscate to charge in. She was just new, not stupid, and brightly flaming fingers stabbed where she’d seen me duck to the side, then swung around as she searched the room.
At that moment, a frightened middle-aged man in a rumpled blue shirt found the light switch at the back of the room. In the shadows, Coruscate’s flames cooled sharply.
That wasn’t the point, mind you. I’d done that for the customers’ safety. No, I dropped off the top of the door onto Coruscate’s back, crashing through and mangling her umbrella. Whipping my Machine off my wrist, I ordered, “Tear,” and dragged it down the heroine’s back.
Fire burst out of the hole as my Machine sucked up a strip of fabric like spaghetti. She staggered back, into the brighter sunlight from the doorway, and a mohawk of white flame roared up.
Coruscate was used to her own power. She dove back forward into the shadowy shop. I stepped out the door, and walked away.
“You fiend! If I go outside now, civilians will be in danger!” she shouted.
I ignored her, and kept walking.
She tried again. “This kind of bad sportsmanship and endangering the innocent proves you’re a villain, you know!”
By the time I crossed the next intersection, I couldn’t hear her attempts to engage in hero/villain banter.
Keeping under overhangs if at all possible, and ducking into doorways if I saw anything move in the sky or on rooftops, I made my way down to Gothic and Raggedy’s neighborhood.
When I got there, the street was quiet. I’d thought last time everyone might have cleared out because of the Happy Days henchmen. Maybe artificial intelligence lovers just made for creepy neighbors.
I plonked down the steps to the basement-level door, and was reaching to knock when something growled on the other side.
“No! Bad!” snapped a man’s voice. Bolts clicked, and seconds later Gothic opened the door. In the room behind him, I spotted the zombie rag doll, sitting in a rocking chair with its arms folded angrily.
Gothic was dressed in the same skull-themed suit as the last time I’d met him, the fabric immaculately pressed. Either he spent two hours preparing for me, or the man lived his life in a state of absolute, fastidious cleanliness. The cement steps outside had been neat and not even stained, true, and despite my expectations of a basement, the visitor’s parlor this door opened into had walls in a pleasant, pale gray, no clutter on the floor, and faded but tidy furnishings.
Raggedy, with a scarf tied over her hair and wearing lumpy layers of shirts and skirts, looked more grandmotherly and less like a statue. She lurked in the doorway to the rest of the basement floor, with two of her stuffed dolls in her arms and three more around her feet. They all watched me.
Gothic stepped aside to allow me entry. “We’ve been waiting for you for more than a month now.”
The old woman shook a finger at him, while all her dolls copied the gesture. “Don’t sound so impatient. We don’t own her. Please come in, Bad Penny, and make yourself comfortable. Do you know what that is? Is your surface touch-sensitive enough that you prefer soft cushions?”
“My sense of touch is close enough to human that I don’t notice the difference, and I do still like cushions, but it’s not as big a deal because I weigh less,” I said. A patched stuffed bear and fox toddled out from behind Raggedy, the bear bowing and indicating the couch while the fox tugged at the hem of my coat. I let her pull me back until there was nothing to do but sit down. There was no denying the softness of the upholstery.
“What about your other senses? Do you still enjoy music? Can you directly receive other transmissions?” Thanks to the high-pitched, syrupy grandma voice, Raggedy sounded like she was asking me about my favorite cookie flavors.
“My sense of smell barely exists. My hearing has improved slightly and my vision quite a bit. I like music more now, I think, because my new partner is so into it. I don’t understand anything she says, but as long as I’m willing to listen, she likes to share. No, I don’t pick up radio waves or anything, and I’m not going to need those, sorry.” That last was to the dolls, which stumped out from various corners of the room with power cords, each one sporting a different plug.
The zombie rag doll abstained, sticking a wide, floppy felt tongue out at me. The bear and fox also had other ideas, climbing up onto the couch, and crowding close to hug me around the middle.
I raised my hands, watching them awkwardly. The rest of the room was equally silent and still for a couple of seconds, until Raggedy said, “You must be in a bad way, for Jack and Jill to think that’s what you need.”
Super powers. Those little fluffy critters had to have super powers, some kind of divination or telepathy that even worked on robots. As weird as it had been to start, getting a hug right now felt pretty good.
“It’s like being back at West Lee’s place,” I remarked, as the disappointed dolls on the floor conscientiously put the cords back in their places along the wall.
That made Raggedy smile. She shuffled over to the rocking chair, and the zombie rag doll slid out, holding up its arms to help the fragile old woman settle into place. As if ashamed by that display of niceness, it stuck stubby non-hands on its hips and stomped off into the hall.
“West Lee doesn’t really do minds, unfortunately. Most of those robots are dolls I made that wanted sturdier, more impressive bodies, or are built around hearts I sewed. West is always working to make better toys, you see. We’ve given away around a thousand now, mostly to hospitalized children.” As she explained, one of the dolls in her arms—a pudgy and extremely round yellow and white rabbit—wriggled free, rolled onto the floor, and waddled over to bump against my feet.
Sensing a request, I picked it up and put it in my lap, where it cuddled close as I gave Raggedy my ‘speculative’ look. “I’m surprised. The results are perfect, but mad scientists so rarely want to work together.”
Gothic’s stony face cracked an awkward smile, and he made quiet noises like imperfectly restrained chuckles. When he got them under control and forced his smile back into pretend gravity, he said, “Calling what Raggedy does ‘mad science’ is stretching the definition to the breaking point. What she sews comes to life. There is no theory behind it, no special technology.”
The old woman fluttered a hand. “Not that I haven’t picked up a few tricks and learned to guide it over the decades, but that’s not the same.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, and for several seconds the silence stretched, broken only by the rustling of the almost spherical toy bunny twisting tighter and tighter up against me.
“What brought you here today?” Raggedy asked. Her direct look, the face tilted forward in concern, the gentle smile—it was both a probe and an attempt at comfort.
When I didn’t immediately answer that, Gothic bowed a few inches, his head dipping farther in a formal nod. “Indeed. My comrade is correct that it is your right to visit or not visit us as suits you, but your long absence makes it all
the more clear you desire our help.”
Well, nothing for it. I rubbed the long-eared lump of the bunny doll’s head and explained, “It finally hit me today that even if I get my body back, people will just think I stole it. No matter what I do, they’ve decided I’m a robot.”
“So be a robot,” said Gothic.
I sighed, which started out feeling natural and became just a noise. “That’s the advice I knew you’d give me, but I can’t accept it. I’m real.”
Now Gothic did scowl. “People like Pong have done you a disservice. Your body is not something to be ashamed of, and you are not the second-prize winner in a competition with your biological double.”
Raggedy leaned forward in her rocking chair, hands on her knees. “He’s right. There are not many intelligent robots, but they thrive and are happy when they stop pretending to be human. Would you like to meet some?”
That made me blink in surprise. “What, they’re here?”
Gothic walked across the room to the hallway, through which I could just barely see a staircase. “Some of them. If you will follow me, I will be happy to introduce you. Perhaps then you will understand.”
I rose from the couch, holding the stuffed bunny against my stomach. As soon as I was on my feet and it was clear it would not be left behind, the bunny waved its stubby arms in excitement.
Raggedy waved a hand. “Yes, please go meet them. I’ll be down here when you get back. I don’t handle stairs as well as I used to.”
Gothic handled stairs as if his spine were a broom handle. His legs moved, but the total effect was of him floating upwards. He led me to the second floor, which technically was the ground floor, or only slightly above ground. The place was… nice, actually. Fresh paint on the walls, ceiling fans in bedrooms with big wooden furniture, lots of paintings (which admittedly were all of robots). The windows were all blocked with wood, but the wood had been painted a pleasant light blue and had curtains in a checkerboard pattern.
One room caught my eye, and I veered off the path. It was a workshop, of course! Roomy, old-fashioned, with all hand tools. When Gothic caught up with the fact that I was no longer following him and walked in, he found me peering at a plaster mold of a tiny arm.
“You make plastic figurines? Is this where the doll that saved me in the Expert’s lab was made? I didn’t know you were a mad scientist.” With the hand not full of happy plush bunny, I tilted the long, long pigtails of what looked like an anime character but was probably just a superheroine I’d never met. Her hair was longer than Remmy’s, which I was not sure could happen without super hair. Her skirt also defied normal human levels of brevity.
Gothic seemed untroubled by my messing with is stuff. He merely smirked, in a bland, embalmed way. “Hardly. I imbue a shaped object of limited mechanical complexity with an essence that allows it to move. I do use them to protect the robot community, when possible.”
Limited mechanical complexity included doll joints. I waved a brawny detached arm, from a figurine I didn’t see lying around. “So it works like Raggedy’s?”
The smirk turned to something fonder. “Alas, I could only wish. Raggedy’s creations are truly alive. Simple-minded, yes, but independent in thought. My best creations take orders, and little else. Neither do I have to create the statue myself, although I find it does make for superior animation.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve seen one of your full-sized statues. Do you chisel stone as well as plastic?” I thought it impolitic to mention the statue I’d seen was the one Heart of Gold used to imprison me in this robotic shell.
Gothic’s smile tweaked just the slightest fraction wider. Criminy, this guy was rigid. You could use him to cross pit traps and poke switches on the other side of closed gates. “Exploring my power when I was young led me to discover a joy in the creation of sculpture. With stone, with plastic, with wire, with whittled wood, and even a little bit of clay firing. I flatter myself that my stone sculpting skills are among the finest, but these days I enjoy plastic molding the most, perhaps because that skill has the readiest audience. It is what brought Raggedy and myself into acquaintance with West Lee. Quite a few of the hero and villain statuettes sold in this city are my work.”
I glanced at the table covered in bottles of paint and brushes. Even if he used the same molds to make a hundred of each figurine, he had to hand-paint each one. Wow.
Then several thoughts clicked together, and I blurted out, “You’re spying on the entire city with these toys?!”
I had him. His face twitched in what had to be guilt before he shook his head with slow deliberation. “A wild exaggeration. I have a few placed where they would do the most good for robots in danger, that’s all. The rest are not animated.”
What a big fat—okay, big skinny liar. And Spider was in on this. She had to be. The Expert would not have a spying device in his lab if he knew what the figurine did, and it had to be a tightly-kept secret if he didn’t know. Only Spider could do that, and she would certainly have motivation. A secret network of spies throughout the city, spies that heroes and villains were even more eager to take home than regular people. Information was power for a kingpin, and these dolls would be a treasure to Spider to make the Orb of the Heavens look like a flashlight.
I admit, I was a little envious.
Another very urgent question popped into my mind, and I watched Gothic’s face like a hawk as I asked, “What about the Apparition statue I own, with the mirrored glass?”
He kept his smile reassuring, by his tight, almost mummified standards. “I am aware you purchased it. That was a very small run I am quite proud of. Content yourself that the issue is moot. Brainy Akk has his home sealed quite impressively against spying devices, and even my creations cease to work within those walls. Although a fascinating side-effect is that once deactivated, he cannot identify them. A trade off you may need to consider someday.”
…nope, not buying it. Well, partly buying it. My Apparition statue was totally bugged, enchanted, whatever you call it. I figured he was telling the truth about my dad’s protections. No weird old guys in skull suits had been watching my bedroom.
Exactly how much information the figurines could relay and how was a question I would very much like answered, but there was no way I’d get an honest answer now. Pity. Also, I had to wonder if my mom knew about all this. She would likely keep it a secret, because knowing when people were being spied on was also useful. Especially if her own house was safe.
Thinking about Mom and her weird way of viewing the world brought a cold, hollow feeling creeping over me. I desperately changed the subject. “Can I see those robots now?”
He bowed. “If you will follow me.”
I did this time, even resisting the urge to check out the actual stone sculpting studio. I’d never seen one of those before. Gothic guided me down the hall and around the corner to a room whose door was almost, but not quite, closed. Lights flashed through the crack.
He pushed open the door without bothering to knock, and stood to the side to let me in. “Cutting Edge, we have a visitor. Penelope is newly brought to artificial status, with the memories of a human child.”
Thanks for the vote of confidence on my claim to being the original, old man.
My resentment died. The inhabitant of the room was much too important. The room was lined with so many computers, game stations, radios, and other electronic devices that it took a moment to identify Cutting Edge himself. Then once I’d spotted him, it seemed crazy anything could ever hide him, even for a second. His boxy steel head floated in the center of a series of broken, concentric rings of metal, each one marked with squiggly glowing stripes. Wires sprung from the rings, connecting them to the computers lining the wall. Most of those wires were identifiable enough, with USB or audio or Ethernet plugs at the ends. Some were a bit more complicated, like the ones attached to a robot arm with a buzz saw hand, and for that matter the wires that came out of that arm’s wrist, connecting into the joystick and button port
s of a game controller. Let’s see, there were the remains of tank treads under the floating head, and four more arms I could see… Cutting Edge wasn’t so much in this room as he was this room, with his body disassembled and merged into the other devices.
The robot watched me with round yellow eyes, but didn’t speak, so Gothic filled in. “Yes, he was a war robot given a human intelligence. A bad choice on their part, but lucky for Cutting Edge. Naturally he tried to assert humanity as a way of gaining independence, but it brought him nothing but misery. Now he is happy. Quiet, but happy.”
I looked at all the wires. “He’s hooked up to the Internet, I guess?”
“And through it, artificial life forms all over the world, including the Orb of the Heavens. Not that he is able to clearly communicate what they talk about. He no longer thinks in terms we understand. I suspect you are still too human in outlook for him to wish to speak to you. Not that he is unfriendly. He has tried to explain a few times, but it made no sense even to Raggedy and myself.” Gothic smiled a real, warm smile, and his voice got soft as he looked at Cutting Edge. Whatever else you could say about the old man, he was sincere in his love of robots.
The floating robot head was clearly watching me, so I stepped over a few fat cables, bent forward, and asked, “Are you really happy? Do you still understand the concept?”
“Yes,” answered a smooth male voice, honey-sweet with contentment, from one of the computer speakers.
“Letting go of humanity wasn’t scary?”
No answer. He just stared. I looked back over my shoulder at Gothic, who shook his head. ‘Yes’ was all I was going to get.
When I stepped back out of the room and Gothic shut the door, the old man murmured quietly, “If we push you, young artificial intelligence, it is because our greatest tragedy is that Cutting Edge’s partner Bleeding Edge insisted on trying to be human, and it killed her. He has never stopped grieving for her, despite so few of his other thoughts matching ours.”
You Believe Her Page 21